Cathy Marston's Jane Eyre - From Northern Ballet to ABT, the New York Met and Joffrey

[Jam Dancer]

On 09/06/2019 at 21:11, Angela said:

Okay, I’ll try to explain once more what I meant. I was not talking about story ballets like Swan Lake or Coppelia: that’s what I would call fairy tale ballets of the old French/Russian/Petipa style. Yes, I know, some of them don’t use fairy tales, but they follow the established form of féerie or grand ballet, they tell the story mainly by mime, not in choreographed movement.  

And I don’t count one act ballets or the Ballets Russes short ballets among narrative ballet. I mean two or three act, full-length works. I was talking about literature ballets like MacMillan‘s Manon and Mayerling, Cranko’s Onegin, Neumeier’s Camellias (and the main part of his oeuvre), many works by Roland Petit, some by Alexei Ratmansky, Boris Eifman, even Matthew Bourne, if you like: ballets which adapt a novel or a play, ballets which develop characters in deeper, richer shades than prince gets princess. They are a European development, and a European speciality, that is my theory, and American audiences largely skipped that part of ballet history in the second half of the 20th century.

So if you refer to Balanchine and drop the one act ballets and fairy tale ballets, there’s not much left of narrative ballet. Story-telling, you have to admit, was not his strength. He was a choreographer, THE choreographer for steps, structures, lines, forms – not drama. I think American audiences are just not "trained" in appreciating sophisticated story-telling, psychological shades of characterisation, mirrored or split figures, doppelgangers, all that tricks that try to show what happens in a mind. They are so much better trained in judging forms, steps, and the pure, abstract essence of dance.

I don’t intent to say what is better and I know there are huge differences in style and quality from MacMillan to Petit to Ratmansky or Marston. I just try to find an answer why so many story ballets we like in England or continental Europe can’t make it in New York.

Interesting discussion - now hoping to be able see Marston’s work as soon as I can.

 

For what it’s worth Angela, I understand what you’re saying and I am inclined to agree with you. I say this as someone with a  British-based pre-university education who attended university in America and lived and worked there for 13 years after graduating university. I also popped back some time after for a couple years to do a graduate degree. Saying “Americans” doesn’t literally mean every single American so of course there will be many people who like narrative ballets but in general perhaps they don’t.

For me the difference in the manner of how literature was taught in university compared to what I did at a high school level was striking. The level of critical analysis and examination I was asked to bring to my work in literature classes in high school was rarely equalled except in a course entitled “Continental Short Fiction”.

Could this be one possible reason for the difference?  I find there is a curated/museum-like approach to European and British literature (and history) that can hinder real appreciation/engagement .

To be clear, I majored in Computer Science major but insisted  on getting as much of a liberal arts education as I could.

[Don Q Fan]

A UK friend of mine saw the Friday Jane Eyre show - Copeland/Stearns I think - and he said he thought it was fabulous.

[DrewCo]

5 hours ago, Jam Dancer said:

For me the difference in the manner of how literature was taught in university compared to what I did at a high school level was striking. The level of critical analysis and examination I was asked to bring to my work in literature classes in high school was rarely equalled except in a course entitled “Continental Short Fiction”.

Could this be one possible reason for the difference?  I find there is a curated/museum-like approach to European and British literature (and history) that can hinder real appreciation/engagement .

 

This is a generalization about the study of literature in American Universities that somewhat takes me up short.  I'm tempted to ask a lot of questions about your education. But I won't...that is,  I would not expect you to answer such questions or feel I even have the right to ask them on a message board! And in the end, I doubt that the answers would be particularly informative either--since it certainly sounds as if one way or another you took some disappointing literature classes--or classes not useful to you--at American University after having taken some you found valuable in your British prepatory education. And that could happen in a lot of different educational contexts.

 

Since I also don't want to go into detail about myself on a message board, I will have to ask you to take it on faith I probably know more about this topic than I do about ballet. Certainly, I have sometimes been very impressed by literary materials I've seen from students in the UK (especially their level of historical knowledge and the polish of their writing)--though of course I see a very limited selection and could not begin to generalize on that basis. But I am still hard put to understand what you are talking about in your post except that you personally had disappointing literature classes in college in the U.S. Does that mean there is a "curated, Museum" like approach to the advanced study of literature in the U.S. in general? I'm sure such things exist--the American academy is vast and very diverse--but as a general description of how literature is taught at American Universities and colleges, it leaves me very puzzled. Based on my experience studying, teaching, and observing in several universities, I don't think it's accurate and I don't think it's fair. There are surely differences between the two educational systems, but it would take a very different kind of analysis to get at the way that plays out. And in the end, I doubt it would cast much light on why a slew of reviews and fan responses to Marston's Jane Eyre skews one way in the UK and another in the U.S./New York. I suspect that expectations about performing arts--opera and ballet adaptations--are playing the bigger role as well as attitudes to choreography as already discussed above in this thread.

 

By the by, Scarlett's Frankenstein seem to me to have gotten a friendlier response from American fans online and even from critics (who gave it "mixed" reviews) than it received on this website or in the British press when it premiered in London.  Audiences overall may react to things differently in different parts of the world, but the differences don't always play out in cleanly predictable ways.

 

 

Edited June 12, 2019 by DrewCo

[Lizbie1]

I don’t have direct experience of American education so can’t offer an opinion on it, but I would mention that in England and Wales at least (I don’t know about Scotland or NI) unless you’ve chosen English Literature - or a language - for one of your AS levels, nobody asks you to open a novel or read a poem after the age of 16.

 

I agree with DrewCo that any cultural divide seems more likely to be about ballet itself.

[Jan McNulty]

I will say, from doing the Links, that the Americans and Canadians have far more respect for Shakespeare as a playwright to be performed and enjoyed than we do these days!

[Jam Dancer]

9 hours ago, DrewCo said:

This is a generalization about the study of literature in American Universities that somewhat takes me up short.  I'm tempted to ask a lot of questions about your education. But I won't...that is,  I would not expect you to answer such questions or feel I even have the right to ask them on a message board! And in the end, I doubt that the answers would be particularly informative either--since it certainly sounds as if one way or another you took some disappointing literature classes--or classes not useful to you--at American University after having taken some you found valuable in your British prepatory education. And that could happen in a lot of different educational contexts.

 

Since I also don't want to go into detail about myself on a message board, I will have to ask you to take it on faith I probably know more about this topic than I do about ballet. Certainly, I have sometimes been very impressed by literary materials I've seen from students in the UK (especially their level of historical knowledge and the polish of their writing)--though of course I see a very limited selection and could not begin to generalize on that basis. But I am still hard put to understand what you are talking about in your post except that you personally had disappointing literature classes in college in the U.S. Does that mean there is a "curated, Museum" like approach to the advanced study of literature in the U.S. in general? I'm sure such things exist--the American academy is vast and very diverse--but as a general description of how literature is taught at American Universities and colleges, it leaves me very puzzled. Based on my experience studying, teaching, and observing in several universities, I don't think it's accurate and I don't think it's fair. There are surely differences between the two educational systems, but it would take a very different kind of analysis to get at the way that plays out. And in the end, I doubt it would cast much light on why a slew of reviews and fan responses to Marston's Jane Eyre skews one way in the UK and another in the U.S./New York. I suspect that expectations about performing arts--opera and ballet adaptations--are playing the bigger role as well as attitudes to choreography as already discussed above in this thread.

 

By the by, Scarlett's Frankenstein seem to me to have gotten a friendlier response from American fans online and even from critics (who gave it "mixed" reviews) than it received on this website or in the British press when it premiered in London.  Audiences overall may react to things differently in different parts of the world, but the differences don't always play out in cleanly predictable ways.

 

 

Of course my post was a generalisation and I said as much.

It doesn’t make me you more right and me wrong and what is largely a subjective matter. My opinions can only be formed from my experience.  You’re reacting as if I claimed I’d done an exhaustive study across the country from the  beginning of time. 

 

I don’t see what asking me about my educational background would prove even if were to answer any of your questions. However much of an expert you might be, your knowledge would only be based on a period of time and you’ve no idea when I went to school. I’ll just say that I went to what are still considered “good” schools but this means nothing as the standing of a school doesn’t always indicate the quality of its teaching. 

 

I don’t recall saying my college courses were disappointing - I mentioned the level of analysis that was required and I cited the difference in approach.  My opinion was formed from my interaction with other students in class as well as from friends I made over the years and their experiences compared to mine. I didn’t mention that because I wasn’t trying to claim I had the definitive answer. I didn’t mention my studies in France either that informed my opinion but I didn’t see this as an exhaustive dissertation and as an argument that I had to win. 

 

I also mentioned that I did not concentrate on literature which  should’ve indicated that I was not making any statements about the study of literature in America.

 

Now that I’ve been duly shown up for  the non literature expert that I am with my irrelevant experience at some community college in America that I  deigned to relate to this discussion, I’ll leave the comments to the better educated and the better informed.

[Ian Macmillan]

Might it now be time for everyone to take a step backwards and, if possible, just accept that through a mix of nature and nurture we all develop different tastes, especially over aesthetic matters?  In my own case, I know these have shifted appreciably over the years, and such differences are not something to fall out over.  Miss Jean Brodie, whilst in her 1930s prime, addressed her pupils thus over some such matter:  "For those who like that sort of thing, that is the sort of thing they like."  

 

And there's a thought - I wonder if Cathy could do something with The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie?

[Jan McNulty]

Interesting discussion between some American dance magazine editors:

 

https://www.dancemagazine.com/abt-jane-eyre-cathy-marston-2638806002.html

[Ian Macmillan]

Janet:  Many thanks for this, as it's perhaps a fitting conclusion to discussion of the ABT run.  I have a sense that the first critical opinions from New York were far from being the last word. 

[alison]

I thought this article, courtesy of yesterday's Links, was very enlightening:

 

https://www.vox.com/culture/2019/6/27/18758645/jane-eyre-ballet-review-cathy-marston-american-ballet-theatre

[Ian Macmillan]

Cathy Marston's  Jane Eyre opened at Joffrey Ballet in Chicago on Wednesday.  If the review in the Sun-Times is any guide, it's off to a better critical start there than in New York.

 

(NB: Google reveals a favourable headline in a Chicago Tribune review, but that paper appears still to be blocked to the EU since the GDPR regulations came into force last year.  Members in the States should be able to see it.)